Flushed
by I was BOTWP
Summary: What happens when Hermione takes Draco out to a diner at a new restaurant in Diagon Alley where no magic is allowed? How will Draco survive for an hour without being able to use his wand at all? And why in the world is the place also a 1950s themed American Diner?


**This is a gift to sarena, who won a contest in the Facebook group Dramione Fanfiction Forum and got to prompt an admin. I took on her challenge of using: Apple, Sand, Salty, and "What do you mean, magic doesn't work here?". My beta was the ever so kind HeartOfAspen. Hope you enjoy!**

Draco stared at the glass door in front of them. Hermione tugged him towards it, her small, thin fingers intertwined snugly between his larger ones. Through the glass, he could see vinyl-encased booths, Formica-covered tabletops, garish neon lights, and servers dressed in strange costumes.

"Wait," he said, using his weight and size to his advantage, effectively stopping her in her tracks.

Another couple coming up the walk was forced to dodge around them. The woman grumbled, "Idiot," under her breath. Her partner opened the door, allowing loud Muggle music to fill the air as the pair slid inside, before the door fell shut, leaving the street comparatively quiet again.

He pressed, "What do you mean, magic doesn't work here?"

"Draco," Hermione groaned, and not in the _fun-between-the-sheets_ way he had grown to adore, but in the _I-can't-believe-I-put-up-with-you_ way. Rolling her eyes, she let go of his hand, turning her back to the restaurant to give him a narrow-eyed glare, hands firmly planted on her hips. "I told you that this place is set up for witches and wizards to have a truly Muggle experience in a safe environment. The magic dampening spell over it makes sure no one cheats."

"I know," he admitted. "I remember."

Draco's eyes darted between the thin line of her lips and the long line of brightly lit windows behind her. They framed groups of people eating with their hands and a plethora of televisions hanging on the walls. These were showing what he vaguely recognized as children's programs. All of the hanging contraptions were set to one of two programs - a large woodpecker hopping around like he had been hit with a series of slightly wonky cheering charms, or some sort of a scrawny _sailor_. There had been pictures of sailors in a history book Hermione loaned him. When the pitifully scrawny character managed to evade the brute attempting to turn him to putty, by eating something out a tin, Draco's stomach plummeted. The soggy mass in the tin endowed his tattooed arm with extra powers.

Draco ripped his eyes away from the black and white moving drawings, and gave himself a shake. It was just a old Muggle show, why was he letting it affect him? So what if he couldn't use magic for an hour, right? Right.

"That doesn't explain the horridly tacky design theme," Draco pointed out, feeling on firmer ground when insulting something. The small sneer he had begun to sport dropped off when his eye caught sight of something in a back corner. He put a hand on Hermione's shoulder, pushing her to his right as he moved two steps to the left to get a better view through the windows. "Wait, is that a Muggle motorbike hanging from the ceiling?"

Belatedly, he realized pushing Hermione aside was bit rude. Fully expecting an indignant remark, he was pleasantly surprised when she glanced back into the restaurant, saw where he was looking, and huffed a mild, "You men are all the same when it comes to admiring a hulking mass of chrome and black leather."

She smirked and reached for his hand again. This time there was no resistance as she led him towards the front door.

"What is this racket?" he demanded. The music was too loud for the inside of an eatery, if you asked him.

"Elvis Presley," she supplied. "He was an American Muggle singer famous in the 1950s and 60s. My grandparents were big fans."

Once they were fully inside, Draco watched numerous employee go by, all ignoring them. "Does someone come to seat us, or do we just sit wherever?"

"No, they'll come for us eventually. That's part of the charm of the place. They're a bit rude on purpose." Hermione acted as if this was not a big deal. Instead of giving him a reassuring smile or one of her nearly patented 'arm hugs' (Draco was loath to admit he liked those - the ones where just a single arm of his received a firm squeeze, rather than his whole body), Hermione was staring into a small, chest-high case with a glass front.

Peering into the case, Draco found the shelves inside full of gelatinous masses. He quickly deduced the charlatans who ran this establishment were trying to pass them off as freshly baked, and the thought made him vaguely nauseous. Getting away from what the restaurant claimed to be pies would be an added bonus to finally getting a seat.

He angled his body towards a spot where most of the servers were congregating, raked his hand through his hair, and pouted (just a little, no need to overdo it.) He eagerly watched two witches, who had moments earlier been acting as if they wanted nothing to do with him, whisper a miniature argument over who would get to serve him.

The winner of the little squabble sashayed towards them, while the loser glared daggers at her back. Draco held back a smirk at their obviousness, and instead beamed at the waitress standing in front of them. If it wasn't quite sincere, there wasn't any reason for her know that. Best to figure out a way to get whatever level of service this restaurant considered top notch. The woman flipped her hair and smiled back at him, barely giving Hermione a glance.

During the meal, the blond bint cooed, giggled, or even attempted a clumsy wink at Draco every time she came to the table. Pulling out a not-so-subtle tactic on the other woman, Hermione flashed the sparkly ring on her left hand repeatedly. The clue that he was taken didn't slow down the onslaught.

At one point when they were alone, Hermione leaned over to whisper, "Suck down that malt. We are getting out of here as soon as we finish eating our burgers."

Unfortunately, that plan was thwarted when their server insisted that on Thursdays everyone got a free slice of pie, and she was going to pick for her if Hermione did not pick for herself (who does that?). Hermione mumbled, "Apple would be fine." The waitress managed to stop cracking her gum long enough to claim it was the best pie they served.

Fifteen minutes later, Draco watched Hermione poke and prod at her pie, clearly distrustful of the sodden-looking crust, which, when peeled back, revealed no discernable apples inside. Finally, she looked around the restaurant with an expression of typical Gryffindor guilt before pulling her glass of water closer and plugging her nose. Draco watched in fascination as she stabbed a chunk of the pie and stuffed it into her mouth, following it up with a drink as quickly as she could.

Mid-swallow, Hermione coughed harshly and was forced to gulp down the remainder of her water. Her face red and her eyes watering, she set down her empty glass with a thunk, shuddered, and crinkled up her nose. "It tasted like sand," she gagged. "Salty sand."

Draco eyed his untouched pie. There was no bloody way he was getting anywhere near the dark brown blob he had been told was pumpkin pie. He stood from the table, leaving Hermione still contemplating her now masticated dessert so he could pay their tab at the front.

"For Salazar's sake, this is a wizard-owned restaurant in the middle of Diagon Alley, why can't you you let me pay in Galleons?" Draco grumbled to the woman working the register, meticulously counting out his Muggle paper notes. In reply, he received a shrug. Just when he thought he had the proper amount of money laid out, Hermione swept through the lobby, passing behind him to go to the bathroom. From the strange look on her face, he assumed she was going to be sick.

The witch took his cash and inquired how everything was, in a completely uninterested, false way. Draco informed her the apple pie had been salty. She smiled and nodded.

Draco walked out the front door, waiting for Hermione to join him. He paced, wanting to be gone from this place and feeling he had been duped by the motorbike and its siren call. He looked at it one last time, mentally shaking a fist at it for its audacity. After waiting another two minutes (exactly, according to his pocket watch), he walked back in, to check that Hermione was not waiting inside for him.

When he didn't see her, he walked back out and looked around to see if she had snuck past him. Was she still in the loo? Should he go check on her? Maybe he should apparate back to her flat to see if she had gone there? He reached into his pocket and his fingers slid down his wand, coming to rest in a position which would allow him to cast. The familiar strum of his magic bloomed in his hand and ran up his arm to his chest, _wanting, ready,_ to be sent back down and out through the hawthorn.

The last time Hermione had any trouble in the Unspeakable Department was years ago, as far as he knew. Currently her team was headed toward their thirteenth assignment in a row without any incident. Perhaps this string of victories, while not public knowledge, but certainly vaguely acknowledged beyond Level Nine, had attracted jealousy, or worse. Maybe she had been ambushed while on the toilet? People still had it out for her; some of them belonged to a very small group of remaining purebloods, while others were just the old guard looking to hold onto a modicum of power in a Ministry which was angling away from them and towards Hermione (and her friends, especially Saint Potter).

He had just decided to Disillusion himself and sneak back in (hoping the magic would hold and not get cancelled by the dampening spell over the place), when he saw her through the windows on the front door, exiting the bathroom.

She looked around anxiously, before spotting him outside and breaking into a trot. Draco marvelled that this was the same witch who just last week had convinced a banshee that she was the cousin of the lead singer of The Weird Sisters with a completely straight face. The banshee had happily complied with Hermione in return for an autograph.

Yet, here she was now, grabbing his arm and yanking him around the side of the building, making her get-away more obvious than a squirrel's cheeks full of nuts.

"Oh gods!" Hermione panted. "Come on!"

Draco had never removed his hand from his wand, so with her hand still on his other arm, he found it easy to apparate the two of them to his flat.

"Oh shit. Oh shit, shit, shit. They're going to know," she mumbled, dropping his arm to raise both of her hands to massage her temples. She closed her eyes and bit her bottom lip. Hermione groaned as she flattened her hands out and pushed the palms into her eye sockets, before dragging both hands down her face, pulling her eyes open as she went. She stared at Draco for a few beats. "They're definitely going to know it was me. Everyone knows who I am. Godric. We can't ever go back there."

Draco rolled his eyes at her dramatics, at her acting so… like him. He was not sure what he thought of that idea. On the other hand, he was completely ecstatic about the idea of never returning to that particular restaurant. That did not mean he was not worried about the cause of her present distress.

"What the hell happened in the bathroom?" Draco demanded.

"Okay, so this seemed like a good idea at the time. Let me just preface this with that. Okay?" Hermione gave him a pleading look.

An expectant raise of his eyebrows was all he was willing to give her.

"Fine," she sniffed. Her demeanor changed instantly; she pivoted, stalked to his lounge, and grabbed a bottle of scotch. Pouring a healthy amount into a tumbler and gulped it down. She lifted the bottle towards him, silently questioning if he wanted some.

Draco shook his head, watching her pour another round for herself.

Hermione smacked her lips. "When you got up to pay for dinner, I quickly wrapped up both of our pieces of pie in napkins to take with me. I slid them in my purse and walked behind you, without you noticing what I had done."

It was true, he had missed her pilfering the pastries. How had he overlooked that? Better yet… "Why? What the fuck are we going to do with them now?"

"Nothing," she answered. "I didn't bring them home with me. I never planned to. I just didn't want to leave them on the table."

Draco was thoroughly confused, and he knew his face showed it. He recognized that it was evident in his tone when he asked slowly, "Can you quit being so cryptic? Perhaps?"

Hermione's garbled answer, which she _apparently_ felt was a full answer, was not much better. "Itookthepiecesofpietothelooandattemptedtoflushthemdownthetoilet."

"Pardon?"

Hermione inhaled sharply through her nose and exhaled out her mouth. "I took the pieces of pie to the loo and attempted to flush them down the toilet."

"Pardon?"

"I didn't want our server to feel bad, so I didn't want to leave the pie behind. I couldn't vanish them, because of the no magic bit. I figured I could flush the evidence away."

Draco decided he wanted some scotch after all. He poured a much smaller amount than she had, and eyed her over the rim as he took a sip.

"Evidence of what exactly?" he finally asked.

"Of the fact that the pie was awful and we didn't eat it."

Using his free hand to scratch the back of his head, Draco took a moment to phrase his next question. "Why would we care?" Maybe it wasn't the best phrasing, but oh well.

"She recommended it. Maybe she thinks it is good, and we were just going to leave it sitting there."

Draco laughed. "No one thinks that pie is good, Hermione. Our server knows exactly how bad it is. She doesn't care. And if I am wrong," he held up a finger to stop her from interrupting, "I don't care if her feelings are hurt. I doubt she is the person who actually bakes the pies. That should be the only person who cares, and based upon the quality of their baking, they don't give a shite. So, why should you?"

"Well, when you put it that way…" she blushed.

"Why didn't you just toss them in the bin once you got into the loo?" he queried, looking at her in consternation. "You could have arranged a bit of paper on top and no one would have been wiser."

"You know what? I don't know." Hermione shook her head and shrugged. "Like I said, it seemed like a good idea at the time, and it was fine... until I clogged the toilet." She had whispered the final words, but he heard her anyway.

Draco snorted. Actually, for real, snorted. "No-o-o-o," he said in a hiccoughing manner, the word broken up amidst bursts laughter. He was trying diligently to hold himself together. "Oh Merlin. Please tell me you're joking?"

He knew she was not joking. Everything about the lead up to this, from the amount time she spent in the loo, to her hasty exit, up through the fashion in which she had relayed her story, made this a rhetorical question.

"No! I'm not joking!" With her bright red face, overall disheveled look, Hermione was a frazzled mess. He suspected she was starting to feel the alcohol as she stared at him in indignation. He shook his head and continued to cackle like a madman.

Draco could just imagine her in the bathroom, watching the toilet back up when the pile of pie refused to go down. He could picture her escalating horror perfectly as the water slowly filled up towards the porcelain lip, the 'evidence' now securely lodged in the drain. Perhaps she might have frantically tried to cast spells at it, only to be thwarted by the wards. She may even have searched the room, hoping to find some sort of implement to aid her. When the tank was once again full, she would probably have calculated the odds of the pressure from a second flush dislodging the problem.

He was laughing so hard it was making his side ache. He wheezed, the pain sobering him back up. Finally, he asked, "Did you flood the floor?"

"Yes," she admitted in mortification. "And that's when I ran."

Draco supposed now would not be the best time to tell Hermione that his mother had owled just yesterday to make sure they were still planning on dinner at her home next weekend, and coincidentally asked if Hermione would enjoy having the same apple tartlets she had raved about the last time Narcissa had them over. Never mind that he was once again laughing too hard to get a single word out.


End file.
